The Homestead
by The Cone
Summary: Don't worry, I'm not dead. I'm making another return with this oneshot that I wrote in a study hall about an old Wally and the house he and Kuki repaired together. That house is all he has now, so what happens when a company man tries to take it? Wally&Kuki. By the way, even after all of this time I still don't own KND. Please review :D


**Ok, so I'm back. Again. *headdesk* I'm a shameless procrastinator, though you all probably know that by now. Sorry, I try. Ok, so on to important stuff, i.e story. Study hall oneshot, that's what this is. Because I'm tired and bored and if I have to do one more algebra problem I'm going to explode. Which we simply can't have because that would be distracting for others. Not to mention messy. On to the show!**

**Skyfall is a good movie.**

**Cone.**

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Wallabee trudged along in the hallway, his old, brittle bones weighing down on the older wooden slabs and causing them to creak slightly under the weight of each step. The wood was part of the ancient house Wallabee had lived in for the past 40 or so years. Initially, he despised it. He could have thought of a million vile things he would rather have endured then a life in this homestead. However, his wife had found something to love in the old, rotting thing. She cared for it, nurtured it, brought it back to what it could become despite time and cost. She had a habit of doing such things, after all. He had the money, and she had the patience. Together they made the home their own, and as time passed he grew as attached to it as she was. They lived together in the pristine fruit of their efforts, and for a while they were happy. But that was a long time ago.

She fell ill. And late one night, with a small storm coming in from the ocean waters, she passed. For days, Wally just stayed in the house's study, watching and listening as a grey sheet of water pattered against those large, ornate windows behind the stoic wooden desk. She had loved those windows, and the atmosphere they created in her husband's place of business. He felt like they were mocking him now. Staring at him coldly with water trickling down like tears as he stared back with a scotch bottle in one hand and a picture frame in the other.

This room, the study, is where he was actually headed now. As he reached the heavy wooden door he took a long, stressed breath and turned the knob. The slow movement of the door resounded with a deep, groaning echo through the study, and another man's voice quickly greeted him.

"Evening, Mr. Beatles." The voice stated. It showed no emotion, more of a program than a real greeting.

Wallabee held his response until the door had opened and shut behind him, booming against the doorway and rattling the iron hinges.

"...I thought I said we were done discussing this matter." He spat, his voice low and ominous. As he walked slowly toward his desk, he took note of the man to his right. A company man, a business worker complete with an over pressed suit and a slicked back hairstyle. He had a faint smile and a danger in his eyes, a look made more outstanding by the fact that the study was clandestine, lit only by a dim chandelier on the ceiling and the little light that penetrated the storm to glow through the windows.

"I was hoping you might hear me out, I have an offer you simply _must_ consider." The business man persuaded.

Wallabee was used to this man; he'd seen him plenty of times before. He was given the job of trying to buy the land from Wallabee, and he was certainly applying himself to his work. He hadn't stopped pestering Wallabee for a single week straight since he'd gotten the job three months ago. He hadn't been interested in the deal to begin with, and any possibility there was that he would comply went down the drain when he heard that the house would promptly be destroyed. He'd said no multiple times, and yet here this man was, back to take another swing at it. His name was Richie.

Wallabee stared him down from across his desk. "No offer of _yours _is worth my time. We've been over this before." At that Richie's expression darkened.

"I don't see why you're so attached to this house old man! Look at it, it's falling apart!" and Wallabee did look around. He saw the tattered books he put up on the shelves because she had liked to read them. He saw the old, faded rug that her mother had insisted she take as a housewarming item. He saw her picture sitting on the desk, glad he'd kept the house all those years even though she couldn't be there with him.

"Memories don't fall apart, you fool!" He retorted, and with the raising of his now quite deep voice, a resonating undertone of his yelling lingered in the room for a time, bouncing off the walls and fading. Angered, he dropped his harsh gaze to his desk's surface. He saw his lamp, the papers he was working on, a pen, a magnifying glass, and of course in the corner his wife's beautiful picture. Next to a cask of scotch, the liquid the colour of old rust.

"What memories? All I see is an old mansion taking up space. We could be putting this land to good use, and you get paid for it!"

"I'm already putting it to good use! All I want is to live the rest of my life in peace, and you're not helping!" Wallabee was furious, and his white-knuckled hand was on the scotch bottle, fingernails drumming the side.

"So go live it out somewhere else! It's time to move on with your life, just forget this damn place!"

That did it.

Wallabee's arm was a blur, carrying the weighty along bottle with it, and then in a burst of rage and exasperation, the cask closed the gap between Wallabee and Richie's face before he even had time to react. The glass missile connected with Richie's jawline, and sent glimmering shrapnel all over the room, be it large segments of the bottle's former siding, large misty clouds of aged liquor, or drops of Richie's liberated blood.

He fell to the floor, grabbing at his face in pain and crying out. Wallabee slowly moved around the desk so as to get a better look at him, and when Richie looked up at his tall, dark figure, illuminated by the glowing windows at his back and the flashes of the storm, he was really quite terrified. He looked like an ancient titan, ready to smash any mortal out of existence if they were foolish enough to mess with him. For a while he just stood there; then he took a deep breath and in a restrained tone, said:

"Get out of our house."

It was certainly the last time he would need to say it. Richie took for the door in a blind sprint, his vision impaired by his own blood in his eyes, and his movements impaired by pure fear. He was out the door in a flurry.

Wallabee's back was to the doorway, listening for the telltale slam that signified it's own weight had shut it, it's operator being in too much of a rush to do it himself. He heard the boom and it's accompanying rattle, and with that he sat himself in his chair and faced the windows, grasping his picture as he turned around.

He just listed for a while, to the falling of rain against his windows, and the occasional rumble of thunder in the distance. If one listened carefully and knew what to look for they could still hear the ocean crashing against the cliffside even in these times of inclement weather. It was all too familiar of a setting. He looked down at the photo, a picture of his wife, encased in an elaborate golden frame. It looked almost as old as Wallabee did.

"Don't worry kooks..." He mumbled, his fingers shakily tracing the hairline in the photo. "I'll never sell the house." The faint light of the chandelier continued to play with the objects of the study, bouncing off of the many facets of the now broken liquor bottle and glowing on Wallabee's most treasured photo. A tear disturbed the light's uniform glow across the glass pane of the picture. and then another. and then another. The house was all he had left now. He was going to protect it, for her.

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**"Powerful" is the quirky little word I use so I don't have to describe something I wrote as "unbearably sad". Looking back, I kinda went towards an UP storyline, but I had no intention to. Funny how that works, writing with no plot at all. Now, you may notice I wrote Wally absolutely NOT talking the way he would talk, but a much older, wiser Wally seemed to fit the role better. (and it was easier to write him like that, because my "auto-dialect" when I type is very similar to how he's portrayed in the story.) That's the same reason I used his actual name, which I've now discovered is a huge annoyance to have to type more than two or three times in a story. It's like a tongue twister, but for typing... hmm, type twisters... Don't mind me, I'm just being odd. Anyways, I will see you next time I write a story. (Which may be very soon, lots of idea-inducing things are coming up.) :D**

**Waterparks are fun.**

**Cone.**


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